I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to suppress myself within and during short and/ or long term relationships – where if something happens to someone that I have a relationship with – whether they go missing, or leave, or die – I experience not only ’emotional’ shock, trauma and stress, but also shock, trauma and stress to my ‘physical body’ – where my heart races and my breathing is fast, and then my entire physical body will become shaky and weak, so much so that within me I lose the ability to properly direct myself free from the energy of the emotion / fear, thus I attempt to manipulate myself and others by trying to hide my inner turmoil, and in doing so, I not only suppress myself but I fail to remain in awareness of myself, thus I miss seeing how it is actually my own thoughts, feelings and emotions that I’m reacting to thus why I’m unable to find stability to direct myself within the reality of who I am within whatever point I’m facing.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to define my relationship to Remmy according to a positive feeling energy, in how I felt comfort and safety whenever I was around him, and even in the way he would look at me, and I forgive myself for how the consequence of such definition will set the stage for fear of loss and sadness to accumulate and develop within and as me.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to find comfort within a positive energeticexperience based upon ideas that I’ve made up within my mind, – ideas that slowly over the years have accumulated to be more than what my actual physical world/reality relationship with Remmy was, therefore, I forgive myself for not seeing the reality and polarity that finding comfort in an illusion / idea within my mind and for the consequences that doing so creates within and as my physical body.

When and as I see myself as my mind having been triggered by an image of Remmy laying dead in the road – where then the positive energetic memories I have of Remmy are disconnected and the energy of sadness comes up, I Stop, I Breathe. I see, realize and understand that these are connections that are mostly energetically based on feelings and emotions because when the disconnect happens, sadness comes up in polarity as a negative energetic experience begins to develop.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to use the death and dying of others to become my story for the taking, to use for self interest purposes where within my mind I seek to escape the fear of facing myself within the fear of loss to fuel my mind as the energy in order to gain attention to / for myself as a weird way of trying to validate myself to myself for myself.

When and as I see myself going into this particular mind-set in polarity, I Stop, I Breathe, instead, ICommit myself to direct myself to disengage all participation in thoughts, emotions and/or feelings in relation to what is being triggered and to instead focus on asking myself the question: who am I in relation to this point and why am I suppressing myself within a false sense of hope because for me, when hope exists I can use it as a tool to see when I’m hiding in my own fear of death and / or loss of self.

It was like any other morning, where I make my way past the back door, stopping to glance out the window with the hope of saying good morning to our outside dogs, But this morning, what I saw was our dog Remmy, laying dead in the middle of the road. At first sight I knew that the animal I was looking at was dead, because of the amount of damage done to it’s physicalbody. Immediately I became aware of how my mind searched for energy, a way to make the image I was seeing Not be Remmy.

Staring out the window at the body I became oddly aware of how within me, it was like I was spinning out of control and I knew I had to stop but yet, I didn’t want to. It was interesting to within such a moment, to implement the ‘looking system’, whereby becoming aware of what I was accepting and allowing as thought participation and then the emotions and feelings.

So in looking closer and investigating the point, I could see how I was becoming emotional and thus wanted to become the energy / surge of heat /the buzz of terror at the sight of my dog laying there in such a state…I took a deep breath and made the decision to not participate within and as the energy and directed myself to move, to put on my boots and walk to the road, to know for sure what I already knew… It Was Remmy, and he was dead.

He had probably been killed within the hour and it looked like he’d been sleeping in the road – which is something he often did regardless of the countless number of times my partner and I tried to keep him out of the road, and in our fenced back yard. It didn’t matter, Remmy was like an expert escape artist, and so finally we stopped trying to keep him fenced in. There were many, many times where he’d slept near or in the road, and always he would hear any cars or trucks coming and would move out of the way, but, not this time.

By the looks of his body, it was probably someone driving one of the several semi-trucks that have begun to daily speed carelessly up and down the old country road we live the other side of. So in the 7 years that we’ve lived here, the once quiet road has changed and is now particularly busy. This because the road has become a frequented passage way for a nearby fracking company who use it to haul supplies to and from.

I’ve watched how the speeding semi’s have caused some nervousness with all our animals and because of how fast they drive, I’ve feared for their safety. More than once I’ve called our county sheriff’s office and asked them to please come and moderate the speed of these guys driving for these major corporations, but I was told that the county doesn’t have the money thus no manpower to follow this problem through to a solution.

So in a way, Remmy, like most of us, fell victim to a system that unfortunately values profit over life. And as I look outside my backdoor window, I realize that I have to forgive myself for the blame, the rage, and the helplessness I want to be and become because I realize the cold hard truth, that life on earth is a very dangerous place. Less dangerous though, if one have enough money to buy their way around the danger, if only for a moment.

Looking at who I am in relation to Remmy’s death, the first thing that comes up is the memory of the day he was born which was not long after we moved to the country, which will be 7 years next month. So Remmy has been here supporting us through much of the beginning, the beginning of when my partner and I got serious about walking our process, our Journey to Life.

The fact is, I would need more than 2 hands to count the number of animals that we’ve had in the past 7 years that have died and are buried here on our land, but my relationship with Remmy has been the longest. So the length of time one puts into the relationship with all the memories, etc, that’s what determines the degree that one will grieve for and miss that someone or something, when they or it’s no longer here and I mean it’s a loss because it’s our ‘relationships’ that fuel our mind…

Another point to mention is how I noticed that when I saw Remmy’s body laying there in the road, lifeless and mangled,,, I felt offended for him. Like he deserved a better ending for the life that he lived. And, the thing is, as ‘sweet’ as that ‘feeling/thought‘ might appear, it’s deceptive because, it is in that thought participation that what happens is, I walk straight into playing the starring role as the victim. The human under consciousness direction, it’s like self interest gives way in that we’ll use the knowledge/the story of the death of another in absurd ways to bring attention to ourself.

This is how our mind as consciousness exists and directs us. Mostly because, I mean, we’re not doing so good at directing ourself, so then who we are as consciousness steps in… So we’ve got to be able to understand who we are as our mind so we can assist and support ourselves to be the directive principle within our world – instead of consciousness automating us, which is clearly what’s happening. What other explanation is there for why we accept and allow within our world things like poverty, war, money, power and greed?

It’s important for me to mention that Remmy is not the only dog that we’ve lost recently. Our big white Pyrenees: Fozzy, as well as: Charlie – a couple of months ago, they left on an adventure and never made it home – which is odd because not knowing for sure how or if they’re dead, kind of keeps death at bay, so to speak. Whereas Remmy’s death seemed to push the point for closure and forgiveness, so, here I am, facing who I am in relation to it.

I’ve never shot an animal, at least not in this life and not that I know of. For that matter I’ve only ever shot a gun once, and I quickly realized I wasn’t fond of it anyway. So basically, I have no experience when it comes to guns nor what it really takes to shoot to kill an animal.

Artist: Andrew Gable Winter is here and hunting season is upon us, and though I understand that many hunt in order to feed their families, it’s still difficult for me to comprehend what it would be like to be the animal who is sacrificed for food. Many who hunt say there is a ‘humane’ way to hunt so that when they shoot they aim to kill so as to not create suffering for the animal, and I do get that, at this point, our physicalbody requires some form of protein. I’m not a vegetarian so it’s not that I’m against eating meat.

Still, it would have to be an extreme emergency situation before I would actually shoot at and/or shoot to kill an animal. I’m not trying to imply that I am in some way a better person than those who are able to easily pick up that gun and shoot, it’s just that the ‘idea’ of taking another’s life kind of scares the hell out of me because, I mean, that’s quite a point of responsibility to take on. Taking responsibility for being the reason for another living being whose taking their last breathhere on earth seems relevant, if only we were inclined to consider the consequences of our actions.

I can’t help but want to ask those who shoot and/or kill animals for sport, or spite, to put themselves in the footsteps of the animals they’re hunting, to consider what it would be like to be the hunted. It’s really odd, how easily it is for us to accept and allow the killing of others – whether it be the animal or the human and whether the killing be by way of war or starvation or simply because it’s ‘hunting season’. It’s often easy to accept the death of a stray animal, or even the death of someone we don’t personally know, especially considering how we as the human are terrified of dying.

Could it be that it’s our obsessive fear of our own death that causes us to so casually accept and allow and even believe that we have the right to decide and/or take life from another living being?

So, as I look closer at this point, I see my own fear of death, and today, I’m very aware of the movement/reaction deep in my solar plexus. This particular emotional energy was stirring within me with regards to the disappearance of our dog Remmy. We’ve had Remmy since the moment he was born, just over 5 years ago, and when he was less than a year old, he and two of our other dogs came down with the Parvovirus. The Parvovirus is a particularly deadly disease among young puppies and about 80% fatal. It causes gastrointestinal tract damage and dehydration and can cause cardiac syndrome in very young pups.

My partner spent an entire week that particular year forcing a homemade hydrating fluid 3 times a day into the throats of Remmy, his brother Kelley and their buddy Veno. Remmy was the only one of the three that survived. Remmy was right by my partners side as he buried both of them here on our land. I specifically remember the evening he buried Veno. Pouring rain, lightening and thunder filled the sky and I watched in tears as my partner stood in the rain and dug a hole big enough to bury a 125 pound dog.

Remmy was the one who guarded our little miniature pinscher the day she was outside alone and bled to death from a hawk who attacked her and severed an artery in her neck. Remmy was there when our dog Buddha got hit by a car speeding down our isolated country road, and he was the one who nestled close to our dog Baby – an adopted stray we came to adore – whose pelvis was crushed when she was backed over by our own car, because we didn’t know that she had fallen asleep under it, and didn’t wake up to move when we were backing out of the driveway…

Remmy survived one cold winter when he was 2 years old and attacked by 2 other dogs and Remmy was the one who came home alone without his mother after the two of them had taken off on one of their many adventures together.

Remmy is the daddy to 3 of the 4 other male dogs we now have, and it’s not unusual for all of them to go off running and be gone for a couple of days, however, this time the boys came home alone, Remmy wasn’t with them. So, here it was just days before the holiday we call Thanksgiving and all I could think of is it’s been 12 days and no sign of Remmy. Remmy and the boys are our outside dogs and that’s the way they like it, and God did I miss seeing his face with those beautiful brown eyes of his.

So, Thanksgiving day this year, in our part of the world, felt like the first day of spring and my partner and I were outside enjoying some fresh air when Remmy appears at the gate to the back yard. My partner was first to see Remmy and he came and said to me; Remmy is home but by the looks of him, he should be dead. When I saw Remmy later and looked in his eyes he looked like he was still in shock and it was difficult to comprehend how the little guy had managed to make it home.

My partner said his wound is very horrific and began to get together the necessary things to try and assist him. He said he could literally put his fist into the wound and touch his rib cage and so we knew that Remmy might not make it. It was a holiday and very few Veteranian clinics are open, so my partner was able to stabilize Remmy’s wound and first thing the next morning we called and took Remmy to the Doctor knowing full well that the jagged wound might not be able to be mended…

The Doc said he was pretty sure he could stitch up the wound and so he did and we were able to bring Remmy home later that evening and maybe, just maybe, Remmy would be alright. We made Remmy a bed inside while he heals and slowly the traumatized look in his eyes is going away. Yes, Remmy is a survivor, but what in the world happened to him? At first glance it looked like his injury was caused from another animal but the Doc said that wasn’t so. He said maybe he had been hit by a car or stuck in a fence or hit by some kind of farm equipment, but the jagged tears in his flesh/skin was still a mystery.

Days passed before my partner noticed a small hole in Remmy just inches from the massive tear and then we knew… Remmy had been shot. The bullet went in and then exploded, tearing and shattering the surrounding tissue. Realizing what Remmy has been through is when I began to experience an energy of anger within me and I remembered something my neighbor said to us some 2 years ago. He said, keep your dog off my property or I’m gonna roll ’em – meaning, he’s going to shoot him. Trying to keep Remmy in the yard is difficult to say the least, because Remmy is an expert escape artist and, who can blame him, he loves to be able to run and play.

So for now, we are grateful that Remmy is healing very well. He still has another week before his 30 or so stitches can be removed and I see several points of fear within me to forgive and walk through as Remmy continues to teach us to let fear go and enjoy life.

And this brings me back to the question: Who are we: The hunted? The hunter? Or both? I can see how I’ve been both. Maybe not literally but I’ve hunted for ways in my mind to ‘get even’ with someone for something I perceived as an unfair act done against me. I’ve stood by quietly and watched as the Government of my Country, the United States, chooses war over Life – for profit – and so that makes me the hunter as well.

I have to ask myself…What if a solution existed that will stop the crimes of and against humanity and the animal kingdom? What if a whole new way of being is possible? What if Remmy and all who have suffered in the game of survival could be assured that life will be simpler, safer and supporting? If only…